Penumbra
by quillstrike
Summary: Penumbra (n): a space of partial illumination between the perfect shadow on all sides and the full light. A Tomione AU.
1. One

**One**

**Definition of Penumbra (from Summary) comes from the Merriam-Webster dictionary.**

**Author Note: hoo boy. This stubborn little plot bunny has been nagging at me for a few weeks now. I finally caved...(dear Merlin am I insane? Three stories at once?) so here's my newest Harry Potter fanfic!**

**And yes, I realise that this isn't the pairing that's currently winning the poll...but this plot bunny (it's a nasty, stubborn one) grabbed hold of me and wouldn't rest until I wrote it out. I figured I'd rather write a story I'm motivated to write than force myself to write a fic that I'm not as interested in (not to say that the TeddyxOC fic will never happen. I do have a plot thought out for that one, but it's just not as stubborn as this plot bunny xD )**

**Note: Set in an alternate universe, no time travel/magic. Tom Riddle lives in the same time period as the main crew.**

** Warning: Tom Riddle will not be fluffy or nice in this fic. T****his story will be a bit dark. There will be violence. And angst (but then again, all my stories have **_**that**_** xD )**

**Disclaimer: only plot/ocs belong to me. I make no money from this.**

** Other than that...enjoy! :) **

** -E**

Dim light struggled in vain to penetrate the tightly drawn curtains covering the dust-encrusted windows, the cloth blocking all but a tiny bit of light that lit the dim flat only enough to barely make out the strewn clothes and piles of discarded plates and cups scattered around the small living room and spilling into the kitchen and bedrooms. A thin layer of dust cradled everything, slipping into tiny corners and burrowing its way into the abandoned stacks of books piled high in every room.

Nothing stirred. There was no sign of life; the neighbors had long ago written off the inactivity as the owner's absence - she must be out on vacation, of course, no one could be _that_ quiet, besides, no one had left that flat in weeks, there was no way she could have survived in there for so long -

And yet...

The owner of this particular flat had never left. Indeed, she had hardly set foot outside of her _bed_, let alone face the world -

The world that was out enjoying the last few days of unadulterated summer, the world full of laughing children and crowded beaches and _people _who would only give sympathetic, horrified smiles before quickly changing the subject -

No, Hermione Granger was better off in her room, where at least she didn't have to face the pitying stares and whispers.

Hermione sighed from her perch on the rumpled bed, her gaze drifting for what seemed like the millionth time to the various newspaper clippings dating from two weeks ago pinned to the wall opposite her. Bold headlines blared out at her from articles that she had already memorized, forcing herself to read word after painful word until the very paragraphs were burned into her mind.

_**TRAGIC AUSTRALIAN PLANE CRASH.**_

_** HUNDREDS KILLED. FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED.**_

_** DEATH EATER SENTENCED TO LIFE TIME IMPRISONMENT - "I HAVE NO REGRETS. WE MUST PURGE THE WORLD OF THE WEAK."**_

It was odd, really, Hermione mused with listless detachment. One day you had loving parents, people you could always count on to send you off with a kiss and a reminder to brush your teeth after every meal...and then the next, they were gone. Yanked from life, from family, from friends, snatched away and never to be seen again.

At least not in this world.

She remembered the very day, the very minute, the very _second_ she'd heard about the crash. She'd been filing away papers at her mindless job for the English government, categorizing the files alphabetically. Her job was mind-numbing, easy, requiring absolutely no intelligence at all. She remembered thinking spitefully that she almost wished everyone from her high school - Hogwarts - could see her. To show them that _this_ was what the "Brightest Student of her Age" was doing, _this_ was what she - the one voted Most Likely to Succeed - was using her famed brain for. Not discovering life-saving cures or fighting for justice in the court or even managing stocks - no, she was a paper pusher. Well, that and a coffee retriever for her boss, a rather foul man named Nott.

She'd almost accepted a position a position at a leading law firm in America, but she'd turned it down because she hadn't wanted to be so far away from Ron. She'd reasoned that _surely_ there must be some job in London that was open, _some_ reputable place to take her. The days had slipped by her until she found that the only job she could get was at a government office that dealt with traffic, of all things.

And so she sat at the small, plain cubicle assigned to her, methodically sorting the speeding tickets into alphabetical files.

It had been a beautiful late August afternoon. Outside the plain white government building the sun was shining, liquid gold pooling onto warm sidewalks covered with colourful chalk and the melted drippings of ice cream. Children laughed, splashing each other in the small fountain across the street while their parents looked on, chatting idly amongst themselves. A dog barked somewhere, followed quickly by an answering, higher-pitched yapping.

Then came the background droning of the small outdated television placed at the corner of the room. Someone had turned it on a few hours ago, but Hermione never payed attention to it; no, her mind would wander to far off places, to memories of spacious libraries, warm laughter by a fireplace adorned with red and gold ribbons, and lectures so passionate they brought shivers to her spine -

"Oh my _God_."

She remembered blinking, feeling utterly annoyed with the speaker for interrupting a rather nice memory of one of the many times she, Harry, and Ron had visited Hagrid, the groundskeeper at Hogwarts. It had been a simpler time, a time where Harry was paired with Ginny and Ron with Hermione. It had _worked_, two and two...

Of course, that had all changed when Hermione came home to undergarments strewn across _their_ floor and noises coming from _their_ room and -

Well, it had ended with yelling.

At least her parents were coming home tonight; they'd been away for a two week second honeymoon in Australia, and they always knew how to cheer Hermione up. She planned on visiting them in their house just outside of London as soon as she got off work at six.

"How horrible - those bloody terrorists are _insane_ - what are they called again? They have some funny name - Death Devourers? Kill Consumer?"

Unable to lose herself again in her memories, Hermione had looked up, shooting an annoyed look at the brunette woman speaking. She - Pansy Parkinson - had been in Hermione's year at Hogwarts, but they'd never gotten along.

"Oh _God_, those poor people - can you imagine?" she continued, blind to Hermione's annoyance. What _ever_ was she talking about? Something about the Death Eaters - the Death Eaters were a terror group led by the infamous and elusive Voldemort that had gone in and out of the public eye for the past few years, spreading hateful messages about "survival of the fittest" and killing anyone they disliked, using the excuse "they wouldn't have died if they were strong" to justify their despicable actions. It was all very medieval, Hermione had always thought - it was almost similar to the whole Salem Witch Trials in that women were drowned to test if they were witches, going by the idea that witches would supposedly float - of course, the innocent women all died anyway.

Still, the Death Eaters had been strangely - and thankfully - quiet over the past few years, and they hadn't had an incident for a while now. Had they resurfaced again? Finally giving in to her curiousity, Hermione looked up from the tickets - she was on F for Fletcher - and glanced at the television. A pretty woman with skin the exact shade of the coffee Hermione had taken to drinking every morning was speaking directly at the camera, her dark eyes serious and professional.

"-foul play _is_ suspected. Investigators are examining the crash as we speak. We have Rita Skeeter live at the scene -

"Thank you, Sandy. Now, as you can see behind me, we have the wreckage of Sky Australia flight number 1737 - there seems to have been an explosion at the tail end followed quickly by another explosion towards the front of the plane, at which the plane crashed nose first into the English countryside. The plane was bound for the London City Airport from Sydney, Australia. So far there are no signs of survivors, although firemen are examining the wreckage as I speak -"

Her heart stopped, icy hands gripping her heart and squeezing it mercilessly, sending shards of ice shooting up to block her throat, her brain, her body. She was frozen, dread pooling at the bottom of her stomach.

Sky Australia...that was the airline her parents were flying on! What had been their flight number? Had it been 1737? _God_, she hoped it wasn't - but the logical side of Hermione moved on mercilessly, whispering that Sky Australia was a relatively small airline so it wouldn't have more than one Sydney to London flight a day...

She lurched forward without realizing it, the neatly stacked pile of traffic tickets spilling to the ground. Stepping forward blindly, she approached the television, stopping only when her nose was almost touching the small screen.

Ignoring the protests behind her, she stared on blindly, numb to the world, as Rita Skeeter - oh, how she absolutely _hated_ this woman, whoever she was, for continuing to speak, for continuing to be so _calm_, almost _gleeful_ at the news - she should be crying, sobbing at the atrocity that had occurred - continued speaking, her curly blonde hair managing to stay perfect even in the rough winds that whipped the smoking trees in the background.

The small, off-white plane was split almost in two, thick, dark grey smoke billowing from the wreckage. Small crackles of red flames appeared sporadically through the haze, the air rippling above the fires.

"-Oh! Folks, there seems to be something occurring behind me - the firefighters are shouting, running away - there - oh my goodness, there's some sort of explosion - oh - _oh!_"

Hermione strained to make out specific details in the blurry plane pictured on the screen. There was a flash of emerald green, so bright it was _burned_ into her eyes, before a firework soared to the sky, one bullet of searing light against a backdrop of heavy, heavy grey -

And then it _burst_, sending out sickly green light -

A shape formed. A skull, a long, sinewy snake writhing, slipping out of its mouth -

"The Dark Mark," Hermione breathed.

"_What?_" came Parkinson's shrill voice from behind her, and she tried to shove Hermione away but _she would not let her, _she was frozen to the spot, staring blindly at the horrors in front of her -

Hermione was never a particularly religious person, but at this moment she found herself praying fervently, muttering feverish pleas under her breath for God, _any_ God that her parents were okay, that they had somehow managed to survive the crash and were somewhere under that rubble, just waiting to be discovered healthy and whole -

"The _Dark Mark_ has appeared, ladies and gentleman! The police have arrived and are investigating the crash as well - it appears this is the work of the infamous Death Eaters. Is Voldemort back after a five year absence? Wait, something seems to be happening -"

Another muffled boom, then the three policemen emerged from the haze, grappling with a blood-splattered man robed in black -

"_They were weak, undeserving of life! My Lord has deemed them unworthy of taking valuable resources from the strong, the powerful! Only the best deserve to live - they are the UNDESERVING!" _

His last words rose into a blood-curdling scream as he seemed to become obsessed, the whites of his eyes contrasting starkly against his soot-stained skin as he _snarled_, his fists flailing - another policeman ran to help the others, limbs flailing, shouting -

Hermione wasn't completely sure what had happened after that. She could vaguely remember stumbling backwards into something before swaying slightly and crumpling to the floor, her eyes still wide open in disbelief.

She'd woken up in a white hospital room to pitying faces. She _hated _those wary, false smiles. So she'd left as quickly and quietly as she could, accepting the "Oh, hun, I'm _so_ sorry for your loss" through gritted teeth before escaping to the blessed solitude of her flat.

And so here she sat two weeks and three days later. No one visited her; the only people who would take the effort to put up with her were hundreds of kilometers away. Harry and Ginny had gotten married recently and had gone on a month long honeymoon backpacking their way through Europe. She had no idea where they were right now, but she was glad they weren't back - she knew what they would think, what they would _say _if they saw her like this.

Hermione sighed, pushing a matted clump of greasy, hopelessly-knotted brown hair out of her eyes. The week after her parents' deaths had been a numb whirlwind of lawyers passing in and out. She'd blindly signed all the papers she'd been asked to, blindly agreed to sell the house - there were too many painful memories there anyway - to pay off the expense of the funeral and debts, and blindly thrown away each and every sympathy gift sent to her flat.

The flat smelled like the decaying lilies that she hadn't bothered to take out, the sickly sweet scent choking the air and intermingling with the toxic scent of spoiled milk emanating from the half-drunken jug left overturned on the counter.

Hermione wasn't normally a slob - far from it, actually. She'd always been a firm believer in the idea that a cluttered room resulted in a cluttered brain...but she just hadn't had the energy to do anything lately.

It was all she could manage to drag herself out of bed just long enough to nibble on some stale bread, dried cereal, anything she could find, really -

In a small corner of her mind she knew what she was doing wasn't healthy, that she should be ashamed to be letting her grief overpower her like this - wasn't she a Gryffindor? Weren't Gryffindors proud of their brave nature, their stubborn refusal to balk at anything, even the most life threatening of dangers?

She laughed bitterly; yes, she mused, she was glad Harry and Ginny weren't here to see her.

And Ron? Who knew where Ron was. Although she wasn't as angry anymore about his betrayal - she didn't have the energy to feel much of anything but dull, debilitating grief these days - they hadn't been in contact for a year now, and the last she'd heard of him he was happy with his profession as a policeman - _he_ hadn't had to give up his job to be with her, she caught herself thinking bitterly - and happily engaged to Lavender Brown, the pretty model she'd caught him with that fateful night all those months ago.

Yes, Hermione Granger was perfectly content to wallow in self-pity alone, thank you very much.

A knock sounded, the sharp noise ringing through the otherwise silent flat. She froze; who could that be? Maybe that person would go away if she just kept quiet -

She stayed silent, her head tilted as she listened carefully for the visitor. Her heart beat quickly, her palms sweating at the possibility of having to face another pitying face, another curious person wanting to see someone who had been personally affected by those "dreadful Death Eaters."

Another knock, this one more persistent. It was soon followed by a loud, "Hermione! Are you in there?"

Her breath caught; she _recognized _that voice -

Standing up in resignation of her fate, she sighed wearily and padded slowly through her room on shaking legs weak from disuse.

She paused a few feet from the door, mentally steeling herself for what was to come.

"Hermione! It's us!"

Hermione struggled to straighten her sweat-stained pajamas and tame her bushy hair into something that actually resembled _hair_, but it was no use - weeks of listless wallowing had left her smelly and obviously unkempt.

"_Hermion-"_

She opened the door.

Twin gasps sounded as the man and woman stared at her, their mouths dropping open at her appearance. She swallowed before opening her mouth.

"Hello Harry, Ginny. How was your honeymoon?"

**AN: Thanks for reading! What did you guys think? c: Please review - all reviews will be returned with my (eternal) gratitude and a teaser of the next chapter! ;D**

**I am also looking for an active beta for this story (preferably someone who knows the characters of Tom Riddle/Hermione Granger very well to help check for any OOCness) c:**


	2. Two

**Two**

** Author Note: and so the angst continues xD This was a difficult chapter to write, not because it was hard to come up with ideas but because I just had this idea of an all-encompassing, heart-wrenching grief that Hermione was going through that I tried my best to convey in words and it made me sad to have to put her through it (Hermione Granger and Emma Watson are and always will be my absolute favourite characters/celebrities. Ever.)...I don't know how well I managed to do it, but anyways - enjoy! :)**

"H-_Hermione_?" Harry asked, staring at her disbelievingly.

Hermione smiled softly, looking down at her grubby feet before meeting their eyes once more.

"Hello," she said again quietly.

"Merlin, Hermione, you look - erm," Harry's voice trailed off, and he shifted uncomfortably in the hallway.

"_Horrible_," Ginny finished decisively, staring in horror at Hermione. She mustered another weak smile before stepping back from the door and gesturing for them to enter. They did so hesitantly, exchanging looks that Hermione recognized all too well - is she crazy? What's wrong with her?

She pretended not to notice the nudge Ginny gave Harry when he stared open-mouthed at the books strewn carelessly across the dust-covered wooden floor, instead shoving some papers off of the dark brown couch to create space for them to sit. They sat down gingerly, Ginny eying the dim interior of the flat with slight disgust.

"Hermione, what _happened_?" she asked, reaching forward to tentatively poke a mold-covered glass of half-drunken milk.

She blinked momentarily, taken aback; so they hadn't heard about her parents, then. It wasn't that surprising, she reasoned, especially if they'd been backpacking through small towns without access to television or big newspapers like the Prophet...

Well, it was better to get it over with quickly.

"My parents died," she said flatly, staring determinedly down at her clasped hands. Her knuckles were white as she clenched the fabric of her pajama top, her fingers shaking slightly as she waited for the expected cries of exaggerated pity that she'd become accustomed to.

Only silence answered her.

When she finally looked up, she saw only horror.

"H-_how_?" Harry finally managed to ask. There was no fake sympathy in his voice, no sign of self-conscious acting. Next to him Ginny was also leaning forward, but she only showed surprise. Hermione mentally chided herself for even thinking that Harry and Ginny - her two closest friends in the world - would act like the others.

She relaxed slightly, her shoulders slumping as she allowed herself to let go of her rigid posture, leaning back against the leather armchair.

"A plane crash. Some Death Eater blew up the engine and then the pilot's cabin. It crashed a few hundred kilometers away from London," she said quietly, blinking furiously as she felt a few traitorous tears forming. Suddenly she was furious, flooded with a gripping anger that shook her very being, dispelling all traces of the debilitating grief that had imprisoned her for so long -

She would _not _cry. She wouldn't, _couldn't_ - she'd had enough of crying, _enough_ wallowing, _enough_ caging herself up in a dark world. She wouldn't let Death Eaters - or Voldemort, whose very _name_ made her want to _scream _in sheer, utter _rage_ - win. They would _not _have the satisfaction of seeing her reduced to tears, to a weak heap -

No, Hermione Granger would have _revenge_.

Seeing her sudden change in emotion, Ginny asked hesitantly, "Erm...Hermione? Are you alright? I'm so sorry we weren't here when - when it happened. We only got back an hour ago..."

"I'm fine," Hermione said, her words interlaced with a steely undertone. And maybe that wasn't _completely_ true - she still felt a shuddering weakness go through her whenever she thought of her mother's smile, her father's warm laugh - but she was considerably better than she had been five minutes ago.

Ginny nodded slowly, still eying her warily. After a moment she got up with and marched over to the windows, yanking open the curtains and unleashing a cloud of dust that left her coughing for a minute.

Sudden light flooded the flat, illuminating each and every dirty, grime-streaked surface of the flat with unforgiving detail.

"When did it happen?" Harry asked efficiently, his tone brisk and professional - he was already reverting to his work mode; he was a prominent police chief famed for his bravery and skill in bringing criminals to justice. If they'd only arrived an hour ago, then he wouldn't have had time to visit his office and find out about the slew of recent Death Eater activity that dominated the recent media.

"Two weeks and three days ago," she answered softly, looking away from his piercing green eyes to stare at the dead lily petals just peeking out from the top of her overflowing waste bin.

Harry nodded, his eyes softening somewhat as he leaned forward to rest a warm hand on Hermione's shoulder.

"Listen...I know you don't want to hear stuff like 'I'm so sorry' and other rubbish like that...but if you want to talk or yell or just rant at someone, I'm here. Don't worry - Ginny does it to me all the time," he added with a wry smile.

"Oi!" came Ginny's indignant yell over at the other end of the room where she was methodically dumping rubbish into a large white trash bag she'd found underneath the sink. Harry grinned at her before his expression sobered, his eyes sliding back to meet Hermione's.

"Look - I know my parents died when I was young so I know it's not as bad as what you're going thr-" he began.

"No," Hermione interrupted firmly. He blinked.

"What?" he asked in confusion.

"_No_, Harry. Don't say that your loss is any less than mine just because you didn't know your parents as well. Having your parents torn away from you...it's a grief that no one can relieve, a pain that rips at your very soul..." her voice trailed off, and to her horror her tears broke through her firm hold, spilling down her cheeks in warm, messy trails before collecting at her chin.

Harry wordlessly stood and, pulling her upwards, enveloped her in a warm hug.

She stiffened for a moment before relaxing, slumping in his hold. Burrowing her head against his shoulder, she let out a strangled wail, jerking uncontrollably as deep sobs wracked her body, grief clutching her heart in its merciless palm.

God, God, _God..._

She still couldn't believe she'd never see them again. What had even been the last words she'd said to them? She couldn't quite remember -

She thought it was a short email sent from work, short and terse, her frustration with her job dulling the email...and of course the original message from her parents was as cheerful and loving as always, and she'd replied with a blunt "I'm doing fine. Glad to hear Australia is nice. -Hermione."

She should have _called_ them, not sent an impersonal email - spoken to them, told them how _grateful_ she was for their neverending supply of love and patience and just how much she _loved_ them and- and-

Her fingers tightened subconsciously around Harry's arms, her untrimmed nails digging into his skin in what must have been a painful hold, but Harry being Harry never said a word. He just patted her back soothingly, murmuring quiet "shhs" and "it'll be okay, Hermione."

"I never told them how much I loved them," she finally made out, struggling to speak through the massive lump in her throat -

"They knew, Hermione. They always knew," Harry replied quietly. She sniffed, blearily detaching herself from Harry's arms to swipe at her eyes clumsily with her right arm.

"Thanks," she finally said. A small hand touched her arm, and she looked to her right to see Ginny's soft smile, her freckled face creased slightly with worry.

"Come, Hermione. Let's get you cleaned up," she said gently, leading Hermione in the direction of her room.

Hermione let herself be led blindly, half-stumbling, half-walking in her numbness. She felt oddly empty, almost like she was a hollowed out puppet and not an actual human being -

And yet, it was almost a relief to have the heavy grief lifted off of her. It was as if she'd been living with the world pushing down on her shoulders and suddenly it was gone, leaving her stumbling in confusion, yes, but free, free, _free_ finally -

Or at least something resembling freedom. She had the feeling she'd never be fully free of the sadness -

She was vaguely aware of being directed into the porcelain bath and of buckets of pleasantly warm water being poured over her, scrubbing away days' worth of sweat and tears and grime and pain -

"Hermione, you've gotten too skinny - you'll have to come to the Burrow with us sometime, Mum will have you fixed in no time-" Ginny said determinedly, helping Hermione into a clean shirt and trousers.

Hermione nodded without argument; she knew she'd gotten thin in her weeks of neglect. Somehow eating had just not seemed as important anymore; not when her parents were dead.

Dead. It had such a final ring to it - what happened after one passed away? _Was_ there some sort of afterlife? She hoped that wherever her parents were they were happy, surrounded by natural beauty - they'd always loved taking hikes - and plenty of clean teeth. The last thought brought a small smile to her face, the first one in weeks.

Ginny nodded in satisfaction when she saw the smile; "Good, you need to smile more. Now, let's get this flat fixed up - it's an absolute _pigsty_, about as bad as Ron's roo-er..." she froze, her eyes widening in horror as she realised what she'd just said. Hermione shook her head, her smile slipping away momentarily before she struggled to fix it back on her face.

"No, it's alright...it's been a year since that incident. It's fine, really," she reassured Ginny. She nodded slowly, still eying Hermione with slight suspicion.

"Okay.." she said cautiously.

"How's my resident football star?" Hermione asked, changing the subject. Ginny grinned, her brown eyes lighting up in excitement. Ginny was a world-class football player for the Hollyhead Harpies, one of the best forward players in all of Europe.

"I don't know about _star_, but it's going great! All those hikes during the honeymoon really helped build up my stamina, plus all that low-oxygen levels at those high altitudes really aided my lung capacity - Coach thinks that we have a good chance at the World Cup this year, so-"

Hermione smiled to herself, listening idly to Ginny's chatter as she picked up the books strewn carelessly across the room, stroking the spines lovingly before neatly stacking them back in their rightful places in the many wooden bookshelves lining the living room. She sent a mental apology to them; she couldn't believe that she'd let them get into such a disarray.

She gathered her wet hair into a ponytail so that it would be out of her face and, gritting her teeth, she began her work, cleaning with a determined fervor that had not touched Hermione Granger since the last round of exams at University.

After three hours of rigorous scrubbing and multiple trips to the rubbish dump, the flat was finally clean enough to pass Ginny Potter's standards.

Harry had helped with most of it but left for an hour in the middle to run to the office - "To check on things, nothing out of the usual" he'd said, but Hermione had caught the meaningful glance he'd shot at Ginny. Knowing Harry, he'd probably get started at once on trying to get a lead on where Voldemort was. He was loyal and stubborn almost to a fault, doggedly pursuing anything he set his mind to and ruthlessly chasing down anything that made his friends suffer in even the slightest way -

By the time they'd finished and Harry had returned, the sun was already in the last throes of its glorious sunset, a few stubborn scarlet shards splintering through delicate whirls of clouds stained with blossoming roses of indigo and navy, peppered through with a sprinkling of incandescent diamonds as the first stars became visible in the twilight sky.

They were sitting on the small porch jutting out from Hermione's living room, sitting on the rickety folding chairs and cradling glasses of pumpkin juice, the newest fad from the biggest juice company in England.

"How was your investigation?" Hermione asked, idly propping her bare feet against the metal railing as she stared up at the night sky.

A pause -

Hermione sighed, a hint of her old, slightly superior nature peeking through her newly-subdued disposition.

"Oh, _honestly_, Harry, don't try to lie to me - I know the first thing you did was look up the latest on the Death Eaters," she said exasperatedly, but her smile touched her words, freeing them from any venom.

Harry laughed after a moment, shaking his head in resignation. "I never could put anything over you, Hermione," he said cheerfully. Then he sobered, sighing heavily before continuing, "Honestly, it's like the Death Eaters appear out of _nowhere_ - one second they're not there, the next they're there, murdering innocents before sending off one of those blasted fireworks people call Dark Marks up into the sky. And then there's _Voldemort_- the bloody git is too much of a coward to show his face in public. The only thing we could get of the few Death Eaters we managed to get a hold of was that they call him the 'Dark Lord' and that he holds an iron hold over them...they're all too scared to even breathe a word about him."

His expression darkened at the mention of Voldemort; Harry, like Hermione, was also personally affected by his actions. When he was young Voldemort had murdered his parents in their sleep, the very first murders he'd committed, in fact - or at least the first murders that were known to be committed by him. Harry had somehow survived the attack - a neighbor had seen the lights and called the police before Voldemort had had the chance to kill Harry as well - and ever since then, he'd had a deep, burning thirst to bring Voldemort to jail.

Well, Hermione had always disliked Voldemort, (how could she not? He stood for all she despised - mindless violence, empty excuses for blind mass murder, the cold extinguishing of precious, flickering life) but now she could finally understand Harry's deep, all-consuming need to avenge his parents.

Her fingers clenched around her cold glass, her knuckles whitening as she glared at the dim liquid inside.

She would get revenge. She would avenge her parents and everyone else that Voldemort and his mindless gaggle of crazed followers had murdered in cold blood.

A distant honking broke her from her heated thoughts; she blinked, snapping from her haze. Realising that Harry and Ginny were staring at her with worried looks, she smiled assuredly at them before lifting the glass and taking a long sip of the cool, richly-spiced liquid.

She would be okay. Suddenly Hermione was filled with iron resolve, determination to turn her life around - no longer would she be a recluse, no longer would she settle for anything less but what she deserved. She would no longer distance herself from old friends just because she was afraid Ron would be there; no, she wouldn't let him stop her. She was through with that, through with wallowing in sorrow, through with being this faded imitation of herself. But first...

"Can I borrow your phone?" she asked Harry. Harry blinked at her before reaching into the pocket of his trousers and retrieving a slim black cellphone. He handed it over easily, watching her curiously as she punched in a phone number and held it up to her ear.

A scratchy, slurred voice answered, mumbling, "Nott here - wha' 'oo wan'?"

"Yes, Nott? I quit."

Ignoring his spluttered protests, she swiftly pressed the 'end' button, smiling cheerfully as she handed the phone back to the now-stunned Harry.

"H-Hermione?" he finally asked.

She shrugged; it had been a rash move completely out of character (it was more of a Harry thing to do, really), she knew, but it had somehow felt right at the moment.

She smiled in contentment, lifting the glass once more to take another sip of her drink.

Mm...this drink really _was_ good. She'd have to pick up another box of it as soon as the market opened.

"Are you sure th-" Ginny began.

Hermione cut in. "Yes," she said firmly. "I'm sure."

**AN: Thanks again for reading! As always, please review! :) All reviews are returned with a teaser of the next chapter! c;  
**

**I'm still looking for a beta, so if you're interested please tell me! c:**


	3. Three

**Three**

It had been two weeks since Harry and Ginny returned to London. Two weeks since she'd decided to start over, two weeks since she'd finally mustered up the nerve to quit her mind-numbing job.

Although Hermione still found herself struck at random times by a wave of deep, body-shaking grief, it _had_ gotten better - or at least, she'd begun keeping herself busy enough to distract herself. It had mainly been job searching, calling various companies to ask for any openings - so far she hadn't successful, but she'd kept trying, trashing and rewriting her resumé over and over again, never quite satisfied with the wording.

Harry and Ginny, of course, couldn't stay near her all the time; Harry was thrown back into his work and Ginny had to attend daily practices with her team in preparation for the upcoming first game of the season.

She had settled into a routine over the past few weeks - wake up, prepare breakfast, clean, organise the many books still in disrepair around her flat, eat lunch, and clean some more. She certainly wasn't a social butterfly, but she'd never had been, even before the...Incident, and at least she was leaving her flat now to get the occasional milk jug from the local convenience store -

Still, she'd be lying if she said she was completely back to normal - that she could say without lying that oh no, she was _completely_ fine, thank you very much, no need to worry -

No, she was definitely not fine. There were times when she'd pause, her hands frozen on the next leather bound book she had been about to place carefully in its rightful place on one of her many bookshelves, a merciless memory of her parents slamming into her mind, bringing with it all the fresh pain and agony of remembering -

Those were the times when she wished desperately to curl back into her bed and hide. Of course, the next moment she'd briskly bring herself together again and scold herself for her cowardliness - when had _she_ ever backed down from anything? Wasn't she a Gryffindor? At Hogwarts the students had been split into different Houses according to their classes and extracurricular interests. Because the school was so big and the Houses so diverse, there was a bitter rivalry between the four Houses - Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Gryffindors - the House she, Ron, Harry, and Ginny had all been placed in - were known for their courage and determination.

The door rang -

Hermione set down the last of her autobiographies - she'd already made her way through organising the various books on subjects ranging from theoretical physics to environmental science and only had the classics left to go through - on her glass coffee table and stood up, brushing the dirt from her trousers, before making her way to the front door.

She pulled it open after a quick peek through the peephole, grinning broadly at Harry and Ginny.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, stepping back to let them inside. To her surprise, they stayed in the small hallway, and Ginny shook her head before saying, "We're taking you out - it's about time you left this flat."

Hermione opened her mouth to protest, to say that _yes_, she _had_ left this flat - why, just this morning she'd gone to the grocery store to pick up some chocolate and -

"_No_, grocery shopping doesn't count," Ginny continued, fixing her with an all-too-knowing look.

Hermione shut her mouth, sighed, and tugged half-heartedly at her tangled hair.

"But-" she began to protest weakly. She had wanted to finish putting away her collection of classics today so she could move on to the more frivolous guilty pleasure reads tomorrow and she still had _loads_ of cleaning to do; her kitchen was still a complete disaster -

This time it was Harry who spoke.

"Hermione, it's not healthy for you to stay shut up in here all the time. We would have come sooner, but this was the first day we were both free. It's time to get out," he said not unkindly. She sighed again before nodding in defeat.

"Alright," she said wearily, casting one last longing look at the pile of unsorted books before stepping out into the hallway and shutting the front door firmly behind her.

Ginny grinned at her. "Brilliant! There's a new exhibit at the museum that Luna was telling me about that sounds promising. I thought we could go check it out," she said enthusiastically.

Luna Lovegood was a mutual friend. Although Hermione didn't know her too well - she just knew that the blonde was a Ravenclaw and a bit queer but good hearted nonetheless - she knew she was a talented sculptor and would certainly know good art when she saw it. Hermione had never been very artistic - she preferred logic and hard facts, thank you very much - but a relaxing trip to the museum _did_ sound nice -

"Sounds great," Hermione acquiesced.

And so they were off, whisked into a bright green cab - "It's a new system the Prime Minister's implementing," Harry explained once they'd all piled in, "The Floo Network - supposed to be loads faster than the old cabbies" - and headed off to the Grandpré Museum of Art.

"Luna said it should be near the right wing - next to the Monet exhibit, if I recall correctly," Ginny said distractedly, scanning the well-lit, spacious hallways anxiously. Hermione stood quietly, breathing slowly as the hordes of late summer tourists swarmed the lobby of the museum, their chatter building to a pressing hum that threatened to chokestiflesuffocate her -

There were too many people. It was overwhelming - she wasn't ready for this, she wanted the quiet peace of her flat-

A touch to her hand, light but firm.

She turned, meeting Harry's bright green eyes.

"You okay?" he mouthed. She blinked, giving herself a mental shake - honestly, she was overreacting. She exhaled, letting her shoulders slump before straightening once more.

She nodded, and Harry returned the action before stepping back slightly.

"Oh! It's over here!" came Ginny's call. Harry motioned for Hermione to go first, and she smiled at him before following the redhead down the main corridor. Ginny was definitely a force to be reckoned with - the crowds of tourists parted easily for the petite girl, and if Hermione stuck close by her she could avoid most of the pushing and shoving, which was quite nice.

"Here it is," Ginny finally said with satisfaction, stopping in front of a spacious room. The exhibit was quite close to the main lobby, just situated to the right of the center hallway. It was a long room, longer than it was wide, with a somber, tense environment so different from the lively chaos just outside -

It was almost like she was in a different building, a different _world_ -

The walls were painted an empty white that seemed to whisper of nothingness and a deep, aching void, and the floors were wood polished to the darkest black, shards of the ebony paint reaching towards the ceiling like raven feathers flying upwards in a whirl of wind. Several canvases of varying size - Hermione spotted one as small as her hand and another that took up the whole opposite wall - hang on the walls, each one labelled simply with a small silver plaque with precise engraved letters.

Everything was spotless.

She couldn't see any lights in the ceiling, but the whole room had an ethereal glow, the colours on the paintings seeming to leap out of their fabric confines.

This room was easily the most crowded in the museum, but somehow it was the quietest - although the room was narrow and there were still swarms of museum-goers crowding around each painting, everyone spoke in quiet, hushed murmurs, almost as if they were afraid to raise their voices in such a setting.

She was distantly aware of Ginny and Harry's absence - they had already gone ahead to look at the paintings. Realising that she was blocking the entrance (much to the annoyance of the family behind her), she quickly moved out of the way with an apologetic smile. The father huffed, herding his crew of three small children into the room.

Her feet took her forward, drifting past a clad of French-speaking tourists to stop at the first painting to her right. It was a small canvas - maybe twenty centimeters by thirty - covered in a deep, dark charcoal grey colour that twisted into shards of jet black in the center. In the very middle of the painting was a single splinter of the brightest white Hermione had ever seen - but it wasn't just white. When she craned her neck, she saw shards of luminescent yellow and incandescent hues of blue and emerald shot through the center, the colours whirling together and contrasting sharply with the dark background. The white speck sported tendrils that whirled around it, tightly coiling and seeming to _glow_ outwards, slashing through the darkness with brilliant white -

She looked for a signature but could only find a tiny green fleck of paint at the bottom. When she looked closer, she saw that it was a small emerald snake, twisting sinuously, the scarlet tip of a forked tongue just darting out -

Hermione read the simple rectangular plaque to the left of the canvas.

_Lumos (c. 1992)_

_Oil on Canvas._

_ Tom Riddle Jr. (1977-1997)_

_ Lumos_ - light. Somehow it fit the painting perfectly. Even though the majority of the canvas was dark, the one shard of light was at once dominating and ephemeral. This Tom Riddle Jr. bloke - whoever he was - was brilliant. She noted the end year on the plaque; it was a pity he had died early. The world was now deprived of a master artist -

She moved on to the next painting. This one was considerably darker, titled _Stupefy_. The painting again had a dark background, not quite black but bleeding the deepest red. A slash of scarlet split the middle, darker touches of a deep blue and indigo swirling together to form the vaguest outline of a face, frozen in horror, its mouth open in shock -

She shivered, moving forward. The paintings seemed to be arranged in order of age. As the paintings grew younger, there was an increasing dark tinge to them - almost as if as Riddle grew older he grew more twisted, tainted by some kind of pain, some deep thirst for _something _-

She finally advanced to the last three paintings. The canvases, though only slightly bigger than the first painting, had the whole wall to themselves. They were unassuming at first glance...but when she peered at them closely, she couldn't help but feel like these three paintings made everything else pale in comparison.

When she glanced at the cards beside each painting, she saw that the trio was named "The Unforgivables" and had been painted in the year Riddle had died.

The first one was titled _Imperio_.

A man, dressed in a tuxedo created by sharp, precise slashes of midnight paint, turning and strangling a woman clothed in a delicate lace wedding gown, the ends soaked in blood. The man's expression was empty, his eyes hollow...

_Crucio_.

This one was a dizzying clash of brilliant colours, slashing and biting at each other to create a whirlwind of jagged, lethally sharp edges. There were no soft edges - everything was brutal, vicious, tinged with a blood-coloured hue -

Hermione moved quickly on after that one, feeling deeply unsettled. She couldn't help but advance toward the last painting -

_Avada Kedavra_.

This one was mostly white, an empty, haunting white tinged with slashes of poisonous green light at the edges...a single black feather drifting towards the bottom, the edges dripping with the same emerald paint, the tendrils warped and shredded, torn apart -

"It's so pretty."

Hermione blinked, breaking from the trance she hadn't been aware that she'd been in. Ginny stood next to her, observing the second painting idly.

"All the colours are beautiful...but look, they never mix, never blend together - it's sad. They're doomed to be separate but together, touching but never interacting. This Tom Riddle bloke must have been seriously depressed," she continued.

Hermione looked at the painting - with all the colours coiling in rage, splintering across the canvas, _thirsting_ to escape the confines of the canvas - and frowned slightly.

Were they looking at the same painting? Hermione saw _Crucio_ and thought only of a deep, unsettling wrath so extreme it was almost painful to even _look_ at-

"It's not sad," she said finally, still staring at the canvas. There was the scarlet again - bleeding into the canvas, staining everything with splinters of blood -

She was vaguely aware of Ginny looking at her expectantly, her eyes curious. Hermione couldn't tear her eyes away from the small signature at the bottom right corner - the snake again, elegant and menacing at the same time -

She finally managed to look away, meeting Ginny's eyes. She felt like she was gone, drifting away - the only thing cementing her to this world, this earth was this art, this _rage_ that seemed to have spread from the painting to her very _soul_, unsettling in its vengeance -

"It's fury. Rage. Wrath. _Anger_."

Ginny frowned, resting her hands on her hips as she turned to examine the painting once more.

"I don't see it," she said finally, shrugging slightly.

"Well, I guess that's the cool thing about art - it's different for everyone who views it. This Tom bloke is _amazing_, anyway," Ginny continued, adjusting her hold on her small leather bag.

"Come on, let's look at some of the other exhibits," Ginny said, waving at Harry. Harry walked over, his dark hair as messy as ever. Hermione couldn't help but smile at that - no matter how many times Harry tried to comb it or Ginny's efforts to tame it, Harry's hair had always been stubbornly determined to be as uncooperative as possible.

"This Riddle bloke seems like a right nutcase," he remarked, glancing at a particularly gruesome sculpture of glass hands clawing upwards, reaching for a mercy that was somehow unattainable, the fingernails jagged and unkempt -

"No arguments there," Hermione replied. Yes, Riddle was talented - that was without question. But there was something about his art that frightened her, something that unsettled her, made her feel like the earth was slipping underneath her, breaking her already-tenuous hold on reality.

And yet, it was enticing - she couldn't deny the allure. There was something dangerously captivating about the sharp, precise brush strokes, the anger present in every painting and sculpture, begging to be released -

Hermione's curiousity was piqued. Who was Tom Riddle and why was he so angry?

For the first time in weeks, she found herself becoming excited, incensed with the deep thirst for knowledge that she thought she had lost after the plane crash. She was determined to get to the bottom of this.

"Hey, Ginny - who is Tom Riddle?" she asked.

Ginny shrugged.

"From what I've heard from Luna, no one really knows much about him. They uncovered this stash of paintings from some rundown house in some backwater town. He rose to brilliance while still in his late teens before disappearing. His studio in London was abandoned, blood smeared everywhere. No one knows what's happened to him - no body was ever found, but he's almost certainly dead," she answered.

Hermione frowned, her brows furrowing. She had to get to a library to research more into the matter. There had to be some art history book with some information on him. She could also research this town, maybe pick up some property records-

The clear sound of Harry's laugh broke her from her thoughts.

He grinned at her, looking immensely relieved and gladdened.

"I know that look anywhere - it's that 'I need to go to the library as soon as possible or else someone will suffer my wrath' look. Also known as the patented 'I'm about to shut myself up in a world of books. Do not disturb' Hermione Granger outlook on life," he said lightly.

Ginny laughed at that, and Hermione couldn't help but join in.

"Oh, do shut up," she said crossly, but the smile on her lips betrayed her levity.

She followed them out of the exhibit and into a display of glass vases. They were exquisitely crafted, but somehow they were boring, lacking all of the allure and raw emotion that the Riddle exhibit had -

She tried to be patient and attentive to the artwork, but her mind was buzzing with what she wanted to research, how she would get a hold of the records, possible hypothesis as to how Riddle had died - maybe she could convince Harry to let her take a peek at the police records, and -

"Oh, go on," Ginny said finally.

"What?"

"Go to the library. We all know you're dying to go."

Hermione smiled gratefully, reaching forward to quickly hug Ginny and Harry.

"Thank you," she said sincerely, trying to convey with her eyes what she couldn't quite say in words - they nodded at her, soft smiles on their faces; they understood what she had failed to say - that she was grateful for all the help they'd given her, not just for taking her to this wonderful museum but for sticking by her when she had pushed everyone else away -

"Go," Harry said softly.

So, casting one last grateful look at two of the most precious people in her life, she whirled, stuffing all her stuff into her bag, and sprinted down the marble hallway, her trainers slapping against the stone as she ran.

She'd check the main library first; she'd have the greatest chance of finding detailed town and property records. Then she'd branch out and search the history behind the style of painting, just to be thorough - after that she could go to the police station and try and get a look at the records.

As she hailed another outrageously green cab, she couldn't help but smile to herself.

For the first time in a very long time, Hermione Granger felt like herself again.

**Author Note: Thanks for reading! As you've probably noticed, I've taken great liberties with the timeline/Tom's birthdate/etc. And, yes, Tom has still not appeared. He will soon though - promise! :D I have this whole story planned out in three long, garbled paragraphs on a separate document and several scenes imagined in my head. Sometimes I wish there was some way to just easily transfer my thoughts into words with a click of a button or something haha. **

** Anyway, please review! c: All reviews get returned with a teaser of the next chapter ;D**


	4. Four

**Four**

Hermione Granger was not happy.

She'd been at the library up to her nose in books for _hours_ and all she had for her efforts was a background that was ambiguous at best.

She sighed, pushing back the last of the formidable stack of art books she'd brought over to her favourite table by a large, sunny window. Whenever she visited the main library in London she went to this table; it was secluded enough to be private, well away from the noisier music and teen sections of the library but close enough to the windows to be well-lit and cheerful. It was a long, oak table made of solid, heavy wood that made her think of log cabins and cozy winter afternoons.

Okay. She could do this - what did she know so far?

Tom Riddle Jr.

Born on New Year's Eve 1977, grew up in an unnamed orphanage in London before becoming discovered at fifteen by Dumbledore, the leading art curator at the time. Disappeared some time in 1997, declared dead August 1997 when blood matching his DNA was found splattered across his studio in London. No familial or romantic relations known, sold his paintings for ridiculous amounts of money, kept out of the spotlight as much as possible.

In short? Tom Riddle was, well, a riddle.

Hermione chuckled to herself at the last thought, pushing her bushy hair back into a messy ponytail as she stretched out her neck and shoulders. They were sore from the hours she'd spent hunched over various rolls of parchment - for some reason she'd always preferred the antique feel of parchment over regular paper.

She was about to shut the last book - a collection of newspaper articles from 1997 - when a single phrase caught her eye - _When asked what his inspiration was for perhaps his most famous painting, Avada Kedavra, the devilishly handsome Riddle merely smiled charmingly before saying simply, "Hangleton." You can be sure this reporter made sure to ask for his number, and..._

She stopped reading after that; this reporter - Rita Skeeter - was annoyingly cocky and biased, injecting so much unneeded drama into her articles that even the most trashy of soap operas couldn't hold a candle to one of her pieces. But _Hangleton_ - that had potential. What - or who - was Hangleton?

Maybe it was a childhood friend, a spurned lover, a parent - it could be anyone.

No...but from his paintings, Riddle had hardly been the most social of people - charming, yes, but he didn't seem like the sort of person who would establish lasting connections with anyone. She could hardly imagine that someone harboring that much rage would willingly spend copious amounts of time with others...

Maybe it wasn't a person at all!

_Ton_...that sounded like something a town's name would end with. She frowned, leaning over to haul the large encyclopedia closer to her. She opened it with a heavy _thud_, rifling through its contents until she'd reached the "_H_" section. Well, there _was _a small town called Hangleton, but it was in northern Brazil, but somehow she couldn't imagine the warm, lively tropical environment inspiring the aching emptiness of _Avada Kedavra._

Wait - there was a small italicized phrase under "Hangleton."

_See also: Little Hangleton (p. 146, vol. 3)_

Anticipation coursed through her veins as she hurriedly located the third volume of the set, flipping it open quickly to the page. There! Little Hangleton, England!

With an excited (and muffled) yell of triumph, she stood up, pushing the wooden chair carefully back underneath the table, and stretched, her arms spreading wide and reaching towards the white ceiling. The sunlight was dimming now, the sun beginning to glide downwards as the air cooled and the bright blue sky becoming shot through with swirls of pink, scarlet, and orange.

She could hear the comforting hum of air conditioners and the whir of the printer spitting out paper, the distant shouts of the children downstairs in the kids' section, the soft whispering that paper makes as it kisses fingers -

She loved the library. It was her sanctuary, the place where she truly felt like she was _home._

After a final shake of her shoulders, she collected the pile of art books - she'd gleaned all she could from their contents - and brought them back over to the narrow bookshelf where she'd gotten them from. This area of the library smelled like old, musty books, the old fluorescent lights dim at best, dully lighting the rows of crammed in books bound in fraying covers.

She moved easily through the aisles, dodging that one oversize book that jutted out in the row between the cookbooks and gardening books, and moved over to the small section where the town records and original documents were kept. Hermione knelt, her knees pressing softly against the navy carpet, her fingers brushing the paper folders gently as she searched for "L."

There!

A small folder was wedged between two larger ones, the typed words "Little Hangleton" barely legible through the caked-on dust that hugged the cream paper. She carefully extracted the folder from its place, coughing slightly when a bit of dust got caught in her nose.

Hermione swiftly flicked through the contents, a grin sliding onto her face when she saw that it held the census for the town and population records. Yes! This was it! She hugged the folder to her chest and stood, moving to go back to her table.

She stopped by the information desk on her way back, smiling a greeting at Cho Chang, the pretty librarian who had been in her year at Hogwarts.

"Hey Cho!" Hermione said. Cho looked up, a surprised expression appearing on her face when she saw Hermione. Her dark eyes widened, and Hermione winced - right, she'd forgotten that everyone expected her to still be lying comatose in her flat. Parkinson had made sure that everyone knew about her collapse at work. Hermione shifted her weight uncomfortably, casting a longing look at her beloved table, whose end she could just make out through the corner of her eye. This was a bad idea. She wasn't ready for the inevitable pity, she couldn't face thi -

No. What was she thinking? She was _done _with this wallowing, down with this cowardliness that would make any Gryffindor ashamed -

So she forced her trembling fingers to still and kept her smile firmly in place, waiting for Cho to collect herself. She didn't have to wait long.

"Hermione!" Cho exclaimed. "I haven't seen you in such a long time! How have you bee-er, sorry, I suppose you haven't been that well..." her voice trailed off, and an awkward pause soon followed.

Hermione wished desperately that she had never come up to the desk to say hello.

"No, I'm fine. I thought I'd return here - it's been long enough, anyway," Hermione finally said, forcing a casual note to run through her words. Her mouth began to ache from the strain of keeping up her wide grin, so she allowed herself a slightly smaller smile - well, she just hoped she didn't look _too _psychotic -

"Right...well, glad to see you back here. We all missed you, you know," Cho continued. She leaned forward, lowering her voice conspiratorially. "McLaggen's been here six times looking for you - the poor bloke's got it _bad,_" she whispered.

Hermione resisted the urge to wince again - she'd gone with Cormac McLaggen to _one_ event at Hogwarts and had regretted it ever since. The bloke was arrogant and condescending, and his lack of common sense made Hermione want to scream at times -

She changed the subject quickly.

"How have _you_ been?"

Cho leaned back against her chair, her face brightening.

"Great, actually - Hermione, guess what? There's this mystery guy - no one knows who he is," she said in a hushed voice. Cho, though wonderfully bright and efficient, was a gossip. Hermione cast another longing glance at her table - she still needed to alphabetically organise all her notes - before turning her attention back to Cho. She owed at least this much to her; Cho had always let her check out books that technically weren't supposed to leave the library, and Hermione was forever grateful for that (there was only so much research she could do in the few hours the library was open).

"Mm?" Hermione murmured. She didn't know what else to say, really. She'd never been good with girly gossip or talking about blokes. Most of her friends had _been_ blokes, with the exception of Ginny, who having grown up with six brothers was hardly the girliest of people anyway.

"He comes here every night like clockwork - comes just as the sun sets, right around now actually, and stays until the library closes. He started coming a week or two ago. He never initiates a conversation, but when I offered to help him he was _achingly_ polite. He doesn't check out anything, just gets a huge collection of books over to his - well, yours, too, I suppose - table and pores through them. He's just as bad as you, really. Hermione. He is _gorgeous_. He's the most beautiful bloke I've ever seen, and you know how I adore Cedric-"

Her voice trailed off in a sigh, her eyes gazing somewhere in the distance as her red lips curled into a soft smile.

"Er...he sounds amazing, Cho, really. So sorry to have to end this, but I have a load of notes to copy and -"

Hermione let her words trail off when she saw that the librarian was hardly paying attention. With one last awkward wave, she turned tail and practically ran to the sanctuary that was her table.

"Finally," she muttered to herself, yanking the chair blindly from its place and settling down with a less-than-graceful _oof_. She slammed the folder down, clumsily fumbling for a roll of parchment, already poring over its contents with her other hand.

Where was that roll? She blindly fumbled around the wooden surface with her right hand, pushing past various pens and books in her pursuit for the roll.

She flicked past the first page of the folder with her left hand, her eyes quickly scanning the paper's contents.

_Little Hangleton._

_Population: 1200._

It was about a three hour's drive north from London. It was so small, practically a village, really. After briefly examining the town map, she flipped to the next page, her right hand still searching for that roll -

Where _was_ that parchment? She could have sworn she'd had another roll right next to that book on modern oil painting -

She huffed in frustration when her hand knocked over a pile of carefully stacked paper - she'd spent an hour organising that one! - but still stubbornly refused to look up from the folder. She was on the portion listing the families living in the town. The names were tiny, almost illegible due to its smeared ink and minuscule, messily scrawled writing. She leaned forward so that her nose was practically touching the paper, her eyes squinting as she moved past the "G"s in search of the "R" section.

No, not Gaunt...

Grover...Haverford...she flipped to the next page, a triumphant grin lighting up her face when she saw "Riddle" on the top of the second column.

"Aha!" she exclaimed, lifting her head from the paper. At the same moment a smooth voice asked, "Are you looking for this?"

She jerked backwards, gazing with wide eyes at the bloke to her left.

Holy Harpies.

Was _this_ the mystery man Cho had been talking about? It _must _be, there couldn't be two men that good looking in the library -

He was tall and lean, dressed in elegant black slacks and a simple white dress shirt with sleeves rolled up to reveal his forearms. A dark green tie was loosened around his neck, the silken fabric shot through with silver stitching. He had a roll of parchment resting on the palm of his left hand, his long, slender fingers just curling to brush against the frayed edges. When she looked up to meet his eyes, she couldn't help but notice his high, sharp cheekbones, angular jaw and sooty black eyelashes that curled downwards to just brush the tops of his cheeks -

A stray strand of dark brown hair brushed the top of his forehead, just kissing one dark eyebrow, dangling in front of an eye so dark a grey it was practically black -

"Is this yours?"

His words jolted Hermione from her reverie, and she flushed furiously when she realised he was looking at her with an amused glint to his dark eyes. How long had she been staring at him?

Suddenly she was annoyed at herself - _honestly_, she was acting like some hormone-driven idiot, not the intelligent person she was -

"Yes. Thank you," she said shortly, holding out her hand to receive the parchment. He raised an eyebrow but handed the parchment over wordlessly, his index finger just brushing hers -

Drat. She was blushing again.

She turned her back to him - okay, so maybe she was being a bit rude, but she had _work _to do and she couldn't get distracted - and sat back down, smoothing out the parchment with practiced ease and holding the edges down with the glass inkwell she used for her fountain pen.

"Not many people use parchment," came the idle observation from her left. She chanced a glance from under her lashes - he was sitting one seat to the left of the one opposite her and had a sizable stack of thick books piled neatly next to him. She frowned, feeling a bit territorial - this was _her_ table. She had sat here for _years_ without company, and Hermione had grown used to the peace her solitude had brought her -

Who was this usurper to think he could waltz in and distract her?

She huffed in annoyance, turning determinedly back to the folder. The tiny paragraph - more like a sentence, really - underneath _Riddle_ was pathetically sparse, listing only an address. She copied it down with meticulous care, the comforting scratch of her pen against the thick paper soothing in its regularity.

When no more comments came from his direction, she relaxed slightly, her lips curving into a soft, satisfied smile as she efficiently flipped through the rest of the folder. Research had always had a calming effect on her. She'd practically lived in the Hogwarts library, trying to read as much as she could before she had to graduate and leave it all behind.

After rifling through the folder's contents three times, she admitted with a sigh that she'd gleaned as much usable information as she could. She'd managed to get Riddle's address and home value but not much else. What was his connection to Little Hangleton? Why live in such a small town? His home studio was in London - why go all the way to Little Hangleton?

She frowned down at the folder, its sparse contents mocking her.

With another heavy sigh, she rolled up the parchment carefully and added it to the stack of rolls to her right. She glanced out the window - the sun had set, the sky now awash in a deep, royal blue sprinkled with a dusting of incandescent stars. The library would be closing soon. Well, at least she'd found out some information - she had a town now, and an address. Maybe she could convince someone to drive her over to Little Hangleton over the weekend - she hated, no, was _terrified_ of driving - or she could see if the Floo Network would take her there.

Her plan set, she stooped down to collect her books, struggling to balance the heavy tomes in her arms. She took a hesitant step - the topmost book teetered, slipping down in slow-motion to greet the ground -

A hand caught the book, and half her load was soon lifted from her arms. It was the bloke from before.

"Oh - don't bother, I have it," Hermione protested. The bloke waved her off, glanced down at the title of the topmost book - Hermione craned her neck and saw it was a particularly engrossing one on forensics that she'd brought out in hopes of finding out more about Riddle's death - and walked away swiftly in the direction of the science section.

Well. That was presumptuous. He might as well give her a pat on her head and stick her in nursery school again if that was how he was going to treat her opinions.

She glared his retreating back for another moment before scowling, any temporary infatuation dissipating as swiftly as it had come.

Cho could have her mystery bloke.

Hermione Granger was perfectly content with her books, thank you very much.

Besides, she had a task to complete. She had no time for distractions.

**Author Note: Dear Merlin, life has gotten busy lately. I've been so overloaded - this is the first free time I've had in weeks! Thank you all for your patience.**

**And so Tom makes his first appearance! :) I have to say, it's very fun to tie in canon/magical references and try and incorporate them in a Muggle world xD As always, please review! All reviews are returned with a teaser of the next chapter :D**


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